DEFENSE FIRES DOUBLE BARRELS AT CRIME LAB But judge refuses to allow testimony by government informant by RYAN ROSS May 27, 1997/DENVER – The work by the FBI crime lab on the Oklahoma City bomb case was so riddled with sloppy and improper procedures that it’s unreliable, two experts testified in Tim McVeigh’s bomb trial Tuesday. The testimony by FBI bomb residue expert Frederic Whitehurst and British forensic scientist John Lloyd cast a cloud of doubt over findings of explosives residues on the clothes McVeigh was wearing when he was arrested. But outside the courtroom, the defense suffered a major setback when Judge Richard Matsch blocked the defense’s plans to call to the stand Carol Howe, a government informant who says members of a religious compound she had infiltrated in the fall of 1994 were talking about blowing up federal buildings, including one in Oklahoma City. "Her testimony would have been very significant and compelling," Howe’s attorney, Clark Brewster of Tulsa, told reporters during a noon break in the trial.  Matsch did not announce or discuss his ruling in court, and defense attorney Stephen Jones is prohibited by from discussing the trial publicly. Brewster claimed he was told that Howe’s testimony was ruled irrelevant. The centerpiece of McVeigh’s defense is that someone else was responsible for the bombing, and defense attorney Jones had hoped to point the finger of suspicion at the group Howe had infiltrated. Jones said in pre-trial filings that Howe told the government before the bombing that she had cased the Murrah building in late ‘94 and early ‘95 with two members of a religious sect based in Elohim City in eastern Oklahoma. She said that they had spoken frequently about their interest in blowing up federal buildings. Prosecutors scored a victory when it became apparent that, despite the criticisms of whistle blower Whitehurst, they were able to build a protective cocoon around agent Steven Burmeister, who did the bulk of the FBI lab work on the bomb probe. Whitehurst’s critique spared Burmeister. He repeatedly called Burmeister’s work on the case "brilliant" and "professional."  As for the lab as a whole, Whitehurst said it: failed to maintain written protocols that would have enabled agents to verify the work of their colleagues.  did not adopt procedures for checking for contamination in the lab.  failed to explain how ammonium nitrate crystals could have been found on a piece of the Ryder truck used in the blast when the area outside the bombed building was drenched in rain in the hours after the blast -- rain that should have washed all such crystals away. "There’s some data missing," Whitehurst claimed. failed to install automatic locks on the doors to the trace analysis lab and failed to check those who entered, thereby allowing people contaminated with all sorts of residues to enter the lab at will.  failed to determine whether the explosives residues found on McVeigh’s clothes could have come from gunpowder that might have come from guns McVeigh owned.  Whitehurst also charged that agent Roger Martz, the first to examine the clothes McVeigh had been wearing when he was arrested, does not practice "good science" and that his work is unreliable.  And he said he’d been told by the principal examiner on the case that the piece of the Ryder truck with ammonium nitrate crystals couldn’t be used in court because it had been found by a citizen, and the FBI could not establish that it had been properly located and protected. That contradicted the testimony of other agents. But Whitehurst conceded under cross-examination that his 1995 study of contamination in the lab didn’t turn up any signs of trouble in Burmeister’s office. The only contamination he found that might have affected the Oklahoma bomb evidence was on a bench area, and it wasn’t clear from the testimony whether the bomb evidence was ever on that bench. And because Whitehurst wasn’t assigned to the probe into the Oklahoma City bombing, he had no direct contact with any of the evidence from the bombing that’s been introduced in McVeigh’s trial. Dr. John Lloyd, one of Britain’s foremost forensic experts, faulted the FBI lab for failing to indicate the quantities of the bomb residues found on McVeigh’s clothing, and for failing to monitor the background levels of contamination in the lab. "Without that information, their findings are of very limited value," Lloyd complained. "It’s like playing a game with no goal posts whatsoever." Lloyd also said the packages used by FBI agent to transport the clothes from Oklahoma to the lab were "not scientifically sealed," and that putting the box containing the clothes on the floor of the lab was a mistake because that increased the likelihood of contamination. "I’ve been very surprised by the inadequacy" of the FBI lab’s work on the case, Lloyd concluded. Under cross-examination, Lloyd said he expects to be paid by the defense for "a few hundred hours" of work on the Oklahoma case at $125 per hour. He also conceded that since leaving a government forensic lab in 1991, he’s always testified for the defense, and that he always raises concerns about the possibility of contamination. Assistant prosecutor Beth Wilkinson elicited an admission that Lloyd wants something unattainable. "The reality is there is no way of excluding any possibility of contamination, is there Dr. Lloyd,?" she asked. "That is correct," he said. BENCH NOTE: At the end of the day the defense opened a new challenge to the testimony of star government witnesses Michael and Lori Fortier, who said they had briefly helped McVeigh while he was plotting to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building. The defense called Mary Laird to testify that while she was a friend of the Fortiers in the spring of 1995, they didn’t indicate to her that they had any knowledge of the bombing or any of its participants, nor did they seem nervous in the days after the bombing.